Complex Web Of Madrid Plot Still Entangled

By ELAINE SCIOLINO; Emma Daly contributed reporting for this article.

Published: April 12, 2004

MADRID, April 11—
A week ago, after suspects in the March 11 Madrid train bombings blew themselves up to avoid capture by the police, Interior Minister Ángel Acebes praised the work of the Spanish police and declared that the core of the terrorist group was either ''detained or dead.''

But interviews with Spanish, Moroccan and French intelligence and police officials and a review of Spanish documents indicate that the plot is more complex than public statements suggest. Investigators say key participants in the deadliest terrorist attack in Spanish history -- 191 were killed -- may still be at large.

Investigators have found no hard evidence directly linking the attacks to major figures in Al Qaeda's terror network -- no money transfers, wiretapped conversations or face-to-face meetings. Instead, they have uncovered what they consider an equally worrisome phenomenon: a complex web of alliances forged through bonds of blood and the local village.

There is no convincing evidence, they also say, that the plot's mastermind has been found, despite an international arrest warrant issued by Spain that identified Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, a 37-year-old Tunisian who later died in a suicide bombing, as the train attacks' ''leader and coordinator.''

In addition, even though 17 people are behind bars in Spain, investigators are still searching for more than a dozen suspects, most of them Moroccan, in Europe and North Africa. Among those are two Moroccan men with links to Al Qaeda who may have played central roles in the attacks.

''It was a very important thing that up to seven people in this terrorist cell are dead and we are safer than we were a week ago,'' said a senior Spanish official. ''But there are important people on different levels -- both higher and lower, we think -- that we have to find. We are missing pieces of the puzzle.''

The contrast between Mr. Acebes's remarks and the view of those closer to the evidence reflects a rift between officials and investigators exposed after the train bombings.

Officials in Spain's center-right government, which was defeated by Socialists in elections three days after the attacks, immediately blamed ETA, the Basque separatist group, even as investigators found evidence that pointed to Islamic terrorists.

But intelligence reports show that investigators were warning of an increased threat from Islamic radicals more than a year before the attack.

Most of Spain's counterterrorist resources historically have been trained on ETA, even though the Spanish authorities had already broken up a suspected Qaeda cell in Spain after the attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

A Spanish intelligence assessment in early 2003 concluded that there could be terrorist ''sleeper cells'' of Islamic radicals with a financial and logistical infrastructure in the country that could be activated ''at any given moment.''

Alarming Assessments

By October 2003, the same month Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, listed Spain as one of several enemy countries, other intelligence assessments were even more alarming.

An influx of radical Muslims from Morocco after arrests of suspects in suicide bombings in Casablanca in May 2003 was one reason given for the increased threat. The deployment of Spanish troops in Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan was another.

One assessment said there was ''an important presence'' of Islamic radicals in Spain who could carry out Mr. bin Laden's threat, which, it added, ''had to be taken seriously.''

Based on earlier threats by the Qaeda leader, it said, an attack could come ''not long afterward.''

Senior Spanish officials say they now believe that the Madrid attacks were mostly organized locally, with the planning, bomb-building, financing and execution carried out mainly by Moroccans inside Spain.

The train bombings may have been inspired, rather than directed, by Al Qaeda. ''Our current thinking is that most of the group was based in Spain, but it benefited from the warrior ideology of Al Qaeda,'' one official said. ''Even if there is no proof that Al Qaeda gave an order to the cell, it took advantage of the operation for its own purposes. The connection is perhaps ideological, not operational.''

At a news conference two days after the bombing, for instance, Interior Minister Acebes announced the discovery of a video in which a man who called himself Abu Dujan al-Afghani claimed that Al Qaeda was responsible for the attacks.

Mr. Acebes released the text of what the man said, but not the video. The video has provided evidence that the bombers were happy to let Al Qaeda take responsibility for the Madrid attacks after the fact.

The man in the video described himself as the spokesman for the military wing of Ansar al Qaeda in Europe, investigators said. But they added that they had never heard of Ansar al Qaeda, which means ''partisans of Al Qaeda.'' They said it might be a label used by radicals to identify themselves with Al Qaeda's cause.

The man was wearing a white robe and a white veil over his face, exposing only his eyes, his head covered in a black headdress, as he read from a piece of paper. He was carrying a British-made Sterling machine gun. Tacked to the wall behind him was a banner with a Koranic verse.